This time of year everyone is posting best gift lists for everyone in your family and every type of person imaginable. Allow me to take a different approach, as I am someone who adores the full contemplation process behind gift giving. My history of gift giving comes out of good-natured sibling rivalry. Each year my …
The Mindful Gift-Giver’s Guide to Selfless Giving Read More »
I have this new rule for blogging. If I hear of something more than 4 or 5 times from my patients in a two-week period I write about it. Call me silly, but this whole sharing a universe thing makes me think we are subject to the same twists and turns of fate. So today …
Anniversaries: Honoring The Good, The Bad and The Horrid Read More »
I became an aunt 9 days ago. It is a funny thing, this waiting for a baby to arrive in a family. All spring and summer we teased the expectant parents about nerves and anticipation. I watched as my mother-in-law spiraled up into a whirlwind of child-like excitement and watched as my father-in-law quieted and …
On Becoming An Aunt: What Our Extended Families Teach Us Read More »
Yesterday I finally accepted October. It always takes me a long time, some years longer than others. I hold on childishly to the idea that the sun will again deeply warm the earth and the trees will grow heavy with green again. At some point every year something inside me shifts and I stop wanting …
The amazing feature of Chinese Medicine that continues to astound me is the focus on the spiritual. There is no “soul” or “spirit” in Western medicine. There is no association with specific emotions and specific ailments. But in Chinese Medicine an upstirring of a certain emotion is diagnostic of a pattern and warrants inquiry into …
Unfulfilled Desires: Why They Just Won’t Go Away Read More »
This weekend was my 10th year reunion from college (yes I’m young-that’s okay). As my husband and I met at college we both headed up to Bennington College this weekend to be wowed by beautiful foliage, amazingly brilliant people (including the remarkable new president who has a 2 week old baby), tasty local food, good conversation …
In the last six months I have traveled to Florida, the Boston Harbor Islands, the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont, Vail and Boulder, the Berkshires, London, Paris, Geneva and then driven all the way to Hilton Head and back. For my patients out there I apologize for all the time out of the office, for my …
I was raised in a household where money and possessions were not considered a very important currency. Though we definitely had everything we wanted and more, there was a distinct striving that I always sensed from my father that was not based on material wealth. It was based on fun. One of my father’s many …
On Wednesday night in the office during my last treatment of the day I had to turn one light on in the office. Yes, it was 7:00. Yes, it was only one tiny, low light. Yes, there was still plenty of wild summer light outside. However it was a sign. It was a marker of …
In the last two weeks I took about ten days off of gardening. The result was a garden full of 3-5 inch weeds so thick I can barely make out the plants. We are not really meticulous gardeners, or meticulous anything to be quite honest. So this forest of weeds is not unfamiliar. But the …